Hugs, streaming tears and loud cheers filled Jane Sanders Stadium on Sunday afternoon for Oregon softball’s Senior Day and final home game of the season.
With senior Samaria Diaz starting on the mound, the seniors’ numbers painted on the field and the Ducks’ mascot dancing in the stands, the stage was set for Oregon success.
The Ducks were poised to win their first conference series in a month. This game was also potentially a deciding factor for whether or not Oregon will host the NCAA Regionals in Eugene, with both teams in a strong bid to host.
“The fight that these seniors have, being united with each other, I can’t say enough of how special this group is,” head coach Melyssa Lombardi said. “There’s no question that they’re definitely leaving a mark on this program.”
The Wildcats, however, weren’t feeling as sentimental. They left the Ducks scoreless in the final game of the series, winning 2-0.
Diaz started on the mound with a base hit from Janelle Meono, getting the Wildcats underway, but the senior worked her way out of the jam with a strikeout against Dejah Mulipola, an Olympian catcher.
Scoreless after two innings, a two-run blast from Arizona’s Jessie Harper got the Wildcats on the board in the third. The Wildcats took their first lead of the day, 2-0. Harper, a two-time All-American at two different positions, slugged her 89th career home run — a figure that ranks her fourth in NCAA history in the category. The fifth-year senior is now only two home runs shy of tying the Arizona home run program record.
A defensive error from Rachel Cid caused runners to advance to second and third and Yanez was forced to throw her way out of a jam yet again. Fortunately for the Ducks, the Wildcats couldn’t convert in the fourth with two runners in scoring position.
Oregon’s offense started to look up after Alyssa Brito hit a single to left field on her first base hit since April 24 against Stanford. Shortly after, the Ducks made it back-to-back singles as Haley Cruse’s in-field single bounced out of Malia Martinez’s glove. Terra McGown looked to get on base or bring runners home, but Alyssa Denham’s fourth straight strikeout led Oregon still scoreless heading into the sixth inning.
“She [Denham] did a good job of just mixing speeds and we just got stuck in between rhythms with her today,” Lombardi said.
In the bottom half of the sixth, the Ducks stranded another runner with Cid on third, and were forced to try and win another game in walk-off fashion.
In Friday’s thriller, McGowan blasted the go-ahead walk-off two-run homer to complete the upset to start off the series — the Ducks needed that same magic heading into the final frame.
With two outs, Cruse stepped up to the plate for her last ever at-bat in the regular season. With the crowd and dugout chanting “Let’s Go Ducks!”, Cruse hit a single to left field, but Oregon left the field scoreless.
“It’s being able to clutch up,” Lombardi said. “We talk about clutching up with runners on, and that’s what was tough. I look and we left eight runners on and we can’t do that. We clutch up in those situations and the outcome looks different for sure.”
The Wildcats salvaged the weekend by tying the series 2-2 behind Denham’s complete shutout and Harper’s early two-run homer.
Oregon’s last Pac-12 series starts on Thursday, May 13 in Berkeley before heading into the postseason.
“One of the biggest things we’ve learned in the Pac is that you’re going to have some tough spots, tough patches and just to grind through those patches and get better,” Lombardi said.
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